The Wyoming State Flag Was Designed by Buffalo Woman

Anywhere one goes in Wyoming, they can see not only the Stars and Stripes flying over school, homes, and government offices, but also the red, white and blue Wyoming State Flag.

The Wyoming State Flag was adopted on January 31, 1917, in the 14th Wyoming State Legislature. But how many people know that the person who designed the flag was a Buffalo native?

From the Rock Springs Miner, Feb. 17, 1917- Wyoming Adopts A State Flag –The design adopted as the state flag by the Fourteenth legislature, assembled at Cheyenne, January and February 1917, was drawn by Miss Verna Keays, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wm, P. Keays of Buffalo, Wyoming, says the Sheridan Post. Mliss Keays is a graduate of The Art Institute of Chicago and is a credit to that institution. This design was first presented with others, to the State Federation of Woman’s Clubs, in session at Sheridan, October 1916. One of the organizations in the Federation of Woman’s Clubs is the Daughters of the American Revolution, to this organization was given the honor of presenting the bill, to adopt the flag, to the legislature for its consideration and final action.

Miss Keays has been true to her native state in the details of her design and in the colors, to the Stars and Stripes. The Great Seal of the state is the heart of the flag, this is within a white American bison, the monarch of the plains. The blue which comprises the larger part of the flag, is per-eminently the color of our skies and symbolic of fidelity and justice. There is a narrow line of white surrounding the field of blue, this stands for freedom of the plains and purity over all. All this is bounded by a margin of red, and signifies the red men of Wyoming and the blood of the pioneer.

A few years later the legislature approved the expenditure of funds to distribute pamplets about the flag to school children.

From the Lusk Standard, December 26, 1919. Wyoming State Flag – The 1919 Wyoming state legislature enacted that “The sum of seven hundred fifty dollars, or go much thereof as maybe necessary is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated to pay for a sufficient number of pamphlets containing a copy of the state flag embossed in colors, and printed remarks explaining the significance of the design, said pamphlets to be distributed among the school children of this state.”

The state librarian was designated by the governor to supervise the printing and distribution of these cards and has made every effort to reach all of the school children of Wyoming. Most of the cards have been distributed through the cooperation of the county superintendents of schools.

If, however, there are any schools which have not been supplied, they should send requests to state librarian, Agnes R. Wright, capitol building, Cheyenne. On one page of the pamphlet it printed the following explanation of the significance of the design of Wyoming’s flag. Our state flag adopted by the fourteenth state legislature was designed by Miss Verna Keays of Buffalo, Wyoming, and was selected as the most appropriate design of the 37 submitted in a contest conducted by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The great seal of the state of Wyoming is the heart of the flag. The seal on the bison represents the truly western custom of branding. The bison was once “monarch of the plains.”

The red border represents the red men, who knew and loved our country long before any of us were here; also the blood of the pioneers who gave their lives in reclaiming the soil. White is an emblem of purity and uprightness over Wyoming. Blue, which is found in the bluest of blue Wyoming skies and the distant mountains, has through the ages been significant of fidelity, justice and virility. And finally, the red, the white and the blue of the flag of the state of Wyoming are the colors of the greatest flag in all the world. The Stars and Stripes of the United States of America.

Verna Keays, the winner of the contest to design the Wyoming flag, won other contests with her artwork. The Buffalo Voice, January 21, 1916- Miss Verna Keays daughter Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Keays of this city, who is a student at the Art Institute in Chicago, was awarded first prize offered by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad company for the best interior designed for the use in the finishing of dining cars, and the announcement of this fact was accompanied by a splendid half-tone photograph of Miss Keays in last Sunday’s issue of the Chicago Record Hearld. Mr. and Mrs. Keays, parents of the young lady, as well as her host of friends in Sheridan and Johnson counties, are highly elated over the very pronounced victory won by Miss Keays over many worthy competitors.

In the same newspaper there was an editorial comment about Keays and the town of Buffalo.

And Always Our Boys And Girls Make Good – Nosir, Mister Stranger. Buffalo is not a big town because there is nothing here to hold the boys and girls who rise in little groups from year to year— who mingle gayly for a brief season and then vanish from our midst to distant fields of human endeavor—and everywhere making good. I witness the recent success in Chicago of Miss Verna Keays – a purely Buffalo product, who won first prize in a field comprising the best talent in America.

So we remain a town of two thousand or nearly that, decade after decade. Buffalo is a small community, I know, and yet we do hold something worthwhile. For all over the earth Buffalo’s children the men and, women who in the years a-gone wandered up and down our beautiful Clear Creek, who played on our lawns and fished the streams and roamed the forests of the Big Horns, recount each day, ere the sands of the evening hours have run their course, the pleasures that are no more, and in countless homes throughout the’ United Sates, or own little city of Buffalo is held inhigh esteem as the city ‘ of enchanted dreams— the place of joy. And if all the hearts that hone back to us could come back why. if all the hearts that hone back could come back, and live over their faded dreams, what a town we would be what a city of eternal youth!

In The Wyoming Times, Evanston, on May 31, 1917, it gives the dimensions and the specifics of the flag. Wyoming State Flag – The state flag was adopted to be used on all occasions when the state is officially and publically represented with the privilege of use by all citizens upon such occasions as they deem fitting and appropriate.

The width of said flag shall be seven tenths of its length; the outside border to lie in red, the width of which shall be one twentieth of the length of the flag; next to said border shall be a stripe of white on the four sides of the field, which shall be in width one fortieth of the length of said flag. The remainder of said flag to tie a blue field in the center of which shall lie a white silhouetted buffalo, the length of which shall be one-half of the length of the said blue field; the other measurements of said buffalo to be in proportion to its length. On the ribs of said buffalo shall be the great seal of the State of Wyoming in blue. Said seal shall be in diameter one fifth the length of said flag Attached to the flag shall lie a cord with gold tassels. The colors to be used in said flag as red, white and blue shall be the same colors used in the flag of the United States of America .

“—From State Law

So, when you look up and see the flag of the great state of Wyoming, remember the symbolism of the colors and the design of the flag, and the fact that an artist from Buffalo created the flag over 100 years ago.